Ace Metrix Reveals the Most Liked Ads of the Holiday Season

Emotional and purpose-driven messages help ads break through the
holiday clutter

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#advertising–Ace Metrix, the leader in measuring the impact of video advertising,
today released a list of the most liked ads from the holiday season,
according to U.S. consumers. Analysis revealed that this holiday season,
a majority of brands opted to focus on deals or promotions in their ads,
versus only six percent of ads using emotion. Despite a smaller number
of ads, the emotional ads scored higher in Likeability by viewers
overall, with six of the top ten ads touting emotional themes.

Not surprisingly, retail ads made up the largest group of ads during
this timeframe with 188 ads. Overall volume was lower compared to last
year, with 362 ads tested this year compared to 403 in 2015. Santa made
an appearance in 12 percent of the ads, as did holiday music. Only two
percent of ads used a celebrity.

Duracell’s ad in partnership with the Children’s Miracle Network
Hospitals earned the most liked ad overall, employing strong visuals
from Star Wars Rogue One and capturing the spirit of giving gifts that
can inspire imagination. Amazon and Kohl’s both earned two spots each
among the top ten ads. Amazon’s popular ad featuring a Priest and Imam
who both used Amazon Prime to buy each other the same gift was the
highest ranked retail ad coming in at the number two spot, while a
humorous ad featuring Seth Meyers landed at number five and was the only
ad featuring a celebrity in the top ten list. Both of Kohl’s ads were
part of their #GiveALittleMore campaign, which includes stories of
Kohl’s associates, as well as narratives about people helping others
this time of year.

“While the majority of the holiday ads this year featured deals or
promotions, the top ads were able to break through and rise above the
clutter by connecting with viewers on an emotional level to earn strong
Likeability and Attention scores. Congrats to Duracell for creating the
most liked holiday ad this year overall. The combination of holidays,
philanthropy and a tie in to Rogue One, resulted in a well liked,
visually appealing ad that played into emotion and grabbed viewers
attention,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. “Kohl’s and Coca-Cola
ads featured good deeds while Hallmark, Amazon and Apple struck an
emotional chord with viewers. Hallmark reminded us to recognize the
people in our lives that helped us in 2016, Apple’s ad with Frankie
spread the message of inclusion and Amazon’s ad featuring the touching
relationship between the Priest and Inman stressed unity in the current
divisive geo-political environment,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace
Metrix.

“All of these top ads stressed Santa and Christmas less than in prior
years, but still captured viewers’ emotions by stressing giving and
giving back, and the importance of friends and family. These brands
created brilliant ads with positive messaging reflecting the spirit of
the season without being too heavy handed,” added Daboll.

Ace Metrix measures ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction
to video ads, providing the advertising industry an unbiased resource to
measure creative impact. Ace Metrix scores every national television ad,
and an expanding proportion of digital ads, across 96 categories
creating a complete comparative database—Ace Metrix LIVE®. A unique
panel of at least 500 consumers, demographically balanced to the U.S.
census, scores each ad in the exact same manner. The results are
presented on a scale of 1–950, which represents scoring on creative
attributes such as Attention, Likeability, Information, Change,
Relevance, Desire and Watchability. Ace Metrix applies a natural
language processing algorithm to the hundreds of qualitative verbatim
responses collected for each ad, deriving additional metrics related to
emotional engagement.

About Ace Metrix

Ace Metrix® is the standard in television and digital video analytics,
dedicated to measuring the impact of video ad creative. We provide data
and insight to enable marketers and creative teams to produce more
impactful work, test and adjust creative executions in real-time, and
understand what creative drivers impact their brand KPI’s. The Company
is privately held and is backed by leading venture capital firms and
industry leaders including Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Palomar
Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures and WPP.